


our eyes are closed (we still see embers)

by PinkCanary



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: BB-8 Ships It, F/M, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Multi, So does everyone else, but with slow-burn OT3, falling in love in the middle of a war, jedistormpilot, pre-tros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22312648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkCanary/pseuds/PinkCanary
Summary: If Rey ishomethen Poe is joy, and Finn is not sure he could live without either of them if they were to make him choose.But, the thing is, he gets the feeling that they wouldn’t even make him choose.(In the little moments in the year between the Battle of Crait and the Battle of Exegol, Rey, Finn, and Poe fall in love.)
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey
Comments: 5
Kudos: 130





	our eyes are closed (we still see embers)

**Author's Note:**

> It's been awhile since I've written jedistormpilot, but that hug at the end of TROS made me feel things. So many things. Enough things that I felt the need to write 8000 words filling in some of the moments between Rey and Poe meeting at the end of TLJ, and the three of them falling into a three-way hand-holding-hug at the end of TROS. Just think of it as a series of vignettes from the year in between. 
> 
> Also, I have not read any of the pre-TROS novels so my knowledge of Batuu is limited to things I picked up from YouTube videos about Galaxy's Edge. So please don't flay me for any timeline/planet details I got wrong.
> 
> Title and inspiration is from Joy by Sleeping at Last. Like seriously, I've had this song on repeat for three weeks now.

_It is the calm water  
In the middle of an anxious sea.  
Where heavy clouds part and the sunrise starts  
A fire in the deepest part of me.  
So I let go and in this moment, I can breathe._  
\-- Sleeping at Last -- Joy

There’s really nowhere to go, and so it’s no surprise when Poe Dameron — recently formally introduced, but already well-known to her if only through BB-8’s enthusiastic stories — sinks down the wall to sit next to her on the floor of the Millenium Falcon. BB-8 is standing guard on her other side and she leans more solidly on the droid. Not away from Poe, persey, but… well, feelings are complicated at the best of times and this is certainly not the best of times.

The fact that this conveniently-chosen vantage point gives them a perfect view of Finn fussing over Rose’s bedside is not lost on either of them. 

Poe seems just as reluctant to address the issue as she, however. “You stole my droid,” he instead accuses lightly.

Rey already has her mouth open to proclaim her innocence but BB-8 beats her to it, unleashing a rapid and clearly indignant stream of binary. 

“BB-8 has no sense of loyalty,” Poe mutters darkly, but the corner of his mouth is turned up slightly.

“BB-8 has a well-developed sense of loyalty,” Rey protests. She’s rewarded when BB-8 bumps her shoulder lightly in an obviously-pleased display. 

It’s been a really _kriffing_ long day and Rey is happy to leave the issue well alone, but BB-8 whistles and beeps a chastisement. Poe is its master and Rey is its master who found and saved and kept them safe on Jakku, and Master Poe and Master Rey will just have to learn to share. 

A wry smile slips on to Poe’s face and he turns back to Finn, who is now sitting at Rose’s bedside, clutching her hand as if she might slip away if he holds on less strongly. And, honestly, maybe she _would_.

And _oh_ , Rey realizes with a start that has BB-8 twisting its dome to look at her quizzically. This is not something that Rey has ever had to know how to do, but it looks like she and Poe are going to have to learn to _share_ quite effectively.

*

Rey is woken from her light doze by Finn squeezing himself into the slight gap between Poe and her own body. She’s draped half on top of BB-8 and she knows that she’s going to regret the sleeping position in the morning, but she’s _tired_ and the hard metallic droid is somehow just as comforting as she can imagine that a biological being would be. 

The space between her and Poe isn’t really big enough for Finn, but that doesn’t seem to dissuade him in the least. He kicks his legs over Poe’s thighs and leans against Rey’s shoulder. This is not the most comfortable place that’s she’s ever slept — and that’s saying something, coming from someone who spent much of her life sleeping in an overturned Imperial walker — but it seems perfectly adequate for the time being. 

Finn shifts just a little and his breath is warm against Rey’s neck when he speaks. “I missed you.” She feels the words more than she hears them, even in the quiet darkness of the Falcon’s nighttime cycle.

“I missed you, too. I’m sorry I had to leave before you woke up,” she answers, barely a murmur. 

They fall back into silence and Rey is only barely conscious when she hears Poe’s voice. “No one missed me?”

Finn snorts and kicks lightly at Poe’s legs. “Did you go somewhere?”

“I’m wounded. First my droid and now my—- you.” 

And it’s said like a joke — is meant to be taken as a joke — but Rey is already getting the feeling that this is how Poe operates. Covering up the things that are most important to him with biting sarcasm and a light-hearted quip. And it’s clear that this is obvious to Finn as well, because his eyes soften and a wry smile creeps on to his face.

“Yeah. Your… me,” he says, teasing but with no real bite. And then, before either of them can tell what Finn is about to do, he presses his lips to Poe’s forehead gently and something not at all unpleasant twists in Rey’s chest.

“You, too,” he adds, before Finn’s lips descend on to Rey’s forehead, as well. His lips are dry and smooth and the entire thing is over in an instant, but it feels important, somehow. Significant. 

When Finn pulls away, Rey is left staring into Poe’s equally-surprised face. She raises her eyebrows at him and he grins back at her in response. 

“Now, can we all just sleep, please?” Finn requests, settling back down into the slot between her and Poe. 

And Rey isn’t sure what she expected from this relationship — has no frame to even compare it to — but she can’t make herself be disappointed with the way that Finn seems to want to take it. Finn is important to her — has _become_ so important to her in such a short amount of time that she would be terrified if it didn’t already feel so _right_. and Poe is important to Finn, as well, and maybe those two things are not incompatible with each other. 

And so, Rey drifts off to sleep to the feeling of BB-8 at her back and Finn against her front. 

*

It’s easy enough to fall into a routine on the Falcon. 

For Finn, maybe even easier than most. He’s spent a lot of his life living in atmo, and the idea of sharing close quarters on a ship doesn’t leave him feeling helplessly trapped like it does Poe and Rey and Leia. It’s even easier when he genuinely _likes_ most of the people on the small ship. Doesn’t mind having to share sleeping and eating and thinking space, when there is clearly not enough of any of it. 

Because, really, he has gotten to actually enjoy the company of the others trapped on the Falcon. Leia asks his opinion on matters when she would be within her rights to just give him an order. Poe claps a hand against his arm or back when they meet in the narrow hallways. Chewbacca has a constant small tail of porgs following him around the ship and he snaps commands and obscenities — at both the porgs and the other Resistance crew — as he stomps around the tiny space, but even his loudest outbursts are tinged with sadness and affection for those that they have left. Snap and Connix and Pava and the others smile with equal parts wariness and hope when he walks into a room.

Rose is awake _finally_ and that’s _good_ , but it does nothing to sort out what she wants from him, or what he wants from her. If anything, she seems just a little embarrassed about the whole thing and he doesn’t want that, but also he doesn’t know what he _does_ want and maybe that’s part of the problem.

They’re all trying to make it work, just as well as they know how.

And then there’s Rey.

_Rey._

It’s hard for all of them, but no one as much as the slight girl who has now had all of the hopes of the galaxy heaped upon her narrow shoulders. And she’s deceptive — Finn remembers well that day in the Niima market when he was seized by the compulsion to protect her — small and thin and so, so painfully young. But with a power hidden just below her thin flesh, like a deadly predator that crouches with muscles coiled and teeth bared, just waiting for the slightest provocation to strike.

It’s that paradox that Rey shows the rest of the Resistance — the rest of the galaxy — but there is another side to the woman that few are allowed to see.

Rey blinks sleepily up at him from the narrow cot that she’d managed to commandeer in the Falcon’s bunk-turned-smuggling-hold. And Finn has seen her wake quickly, staff grabbed from its nearby resting place and ready to defend herself and those that she cares about.

But now? Now she’s lying prone on the cot and staring at him expectantly but not moving from her blanket cocoon. One eyebrow raises fractionally. _Any news?_

It feels almost wrong to break the silence of the room with actual words, but she did ask. “Nothing yet. The General says that she thinks that she’s secured a place for us to go…. Poe is just taking us on a… roundabout route to get there, first.”

Rey nods. “So we have some time?”

“A few hours, at least. Maybe another day or two, depending on how convoluted Poe decides to make it.”

Rey is biting her lip and seems lost in thought and Finn mentally chastises himself for waking her up for really nothing, when her face smoothes out as if she’s finally settled a war going on in her own head. “Join me?” Her voice wavers just a little. Not nervous but… uncertain. Vulnerable. 

He shouldn’t, he knows that. Casual contact between stormtroopers was strictly forbidden, let alone bed-sharing. He knows — _knows_ , even if he still has to remind himself far more often than he likes — that there are no such rules in the Resistance, but he also knows that there is work to be done. Knows that he left Poe and the General in the cockpit of the Falcon and they’ll suspect something is up if he doesn’t return within a few minutes.

Also, knows that it probably doesn’t matter even if they do know, now. That neither would begrudge him a few minutes of rest, even — _especially_ — with another Resistance member. 

In the end, it’s the idea of free will that leads him down into Rey’s bunk and into her outstretched arms. The idea that _he_ is choosing this — choosing Rey as a bunkmate and a source of comfort and an escape from duty. 

She sighs with sleepy contentment when he finally settles down on his back, Rey’s head pillowed on his shoulder and her legs tangled around one of his. Was it really only a few days ago that Rey objected to him grabbing her hand as they ran for their lives? It’s like something monumental shifted in the young woman the very second that she realized that she could trust him fully with her well-being. 

The Rey of a few days earlier resented any touch. Now, it’s like she can’t get _enough_.

“How’s Rose?” Rey finally asks, her nose pressed into his neck.

“She’s better,” Finn says, intentionally vague. He hadn’t told her the entire story of what had gone on between himself and the mechanic during the time that Rey was on Ach-to, but he knew that Rey suspects that _something_ had gone down between them. 

Not to mention the overwhelming guilt he felt at how easily Rose had tried to give up her own life for his. Another thing he wasn’t quite willing to come to terms with at this moment.

It had been a weird few days, for sure.

Thankfully, Rey doesn’t seem any more inclined to discuss Rose than he is. She has her nose once again pressed into his neck and her breath is warm against his skin. It feels _good_ , good in a way that he had no idea that he could feel with another person, but it feels even impossibly better when she presses her lips against his neck gently. Tentative. 

When he pulls back, eyes questioning, Rey just dips her chin and averts her eyes slightly, almost in apology, before the same resolve as earlier once again sweeps over her face. And damn if it doesn’t make something squeeze in his chest. Affection, freely given. Free will. 

Maybe for the first time. For both of them.

(Finn still has no idea what it is, but it feels like _something_.)

*

Poe is cheerfully enthusiastic about Batuu, right from the first landing. 

(“It doesn’t smell like the inside of an armpit like the Falcon does right now,” is all Snap says about the planet, which seems good enough for him and the majority of the remainder of the Resistance.)

It’s warm and humid and rains all afternoon, _every single afternoon_ , but the forest is full of towering petrified trees and countless species of native flowers and fruits. “It’s just like home,” Poe says, his breath catching in his throat as he walks down the ramp of the Falcon for the very first time. He brings his arm up and over Finn’s shoulder, leading him down off the ramp and on to the spongy moss-covered ground.

And really, the fact that Poe and Rey seem to like it is good enough for Finn.

They don’t really have time for _sightseeing_ , really, but Poe is decently good at convincing Finn to venture outside of the base whenever possible. They hike through the forest to marvel at the waterfalls and the petrified trees — spires, as they’re called by the locals. 

On rare occasions, and over Finn’s protests that there’s too much to do, Poe drags Finn into the Batuu Outpost market to browse through the stalls selling local foods and other necessities, under the excuses of “intel” and “recruitment.” 

“You’ve spent your entire life cooped up in one First Order base after another!” Poe insists, as he leads Finn out of the base. “You need to see the rest of the galaxy!”

Finn wants to argue that he _has_ seen the rest of the galaxy — was chased and shot at and nearly killed on almost a dozen worlds by now! — but Poe just looks so pleased to be able to show it all to him that he can’t even bear to disappoint him. 

“C’mon buddy, we have to try these!” Poe insists, handing over a small stack of credits to the young woman at one stall. “They look like something that my papa used to make back on Yavin IV.” 

The food in question appears to be some sort of dried and roasted legume, seasoned with a bright red spice that stains Poe’s fingers and makes Finn’s eyes burn from even a few feet away. Poe reaches into the small paper sack and pops several them into his mouth; his eyes close in pure bliss as he crunches down on the snack.

Before Finn can even protest, Poe is pressing one of the nuts against Finn’s slightly-parted lips and Finn doesn’t hesitate to open wider, almost out of instinct more than anything else. The nut is firm and and crunchy in the center — a bit salty…. before suddenly exploding white-hot against Finn’s tongue. 

“That’s kriffin’ spicy, Poe!” Finn sputters, trying to pretend that his fluster is entirely related to the food in question, and not the intimacy implied by being _fed_ by the other man. 

Poe grins back at him, utterly unrepentant, and Finn is struck by the sudden urge to kiss the smirk right off the pilot’s face.

The smile slips from Poe’s face for just a second, as if he knows just what Finn is thinking. And maybe he does. Rey always says that Finn is an open book — that she can always tell exactly what’s going on in his head — but she doesn’t say it like it’s a bad thing. 

Stormtroopers always wear masks, so he never had to learn to control his features, and he’s not sure that he has to now. Not around Rey and Poe, at the very least.

But now, Poe just grins knowingly back at him, and no, Finn is pretty sure that there’s no point in hiding just how much he feels for the other man. 

The whole damn base surely knows by now.

*

“I’m sorry,” Finn says, and he’s not really sure what exactly he’s apologizing for, but Rose’s eyes close briefly in what he could almost swear is mortification. 

“Ugh, _I’m_ sorry,” she counters, after a moment. “I thought I was dying and the moment seemed so much more significant than it actually ended up being.” She chuckles softly. “It’s like running into the person you hooked up with in the cantina the next morning, when you thought they were already off-planet.”

“It’s even weirder for stormtroopers,” he offers with a wry grin. “You have to avoid each other the next morning, but sometimes you’re not even entirely sure if you’re avoiding the right person.”

Rose lets out a bark of laughter. “You have a lot of experience with that?”

“Not _a lot_ , but really it only takes one…”

Rose is laughing for real now.

“We’re good?” Finn asks, because it seems important to know that. He hasn’t had a whole lot of friends in his life and it would be a shame to lose one of them already.

“We’re good,” Rose says, and she sounds more certain now than she has since she woke up. 

“Good.”

“Good.”

But then Rose’s mouth twists wryly. “Besides, I have a hundred credits wagered on the outcome of your love life right now. Don’t let me down.”

*

(No amount of cajoling would get her to reveal just _who_ she had bet on.)

*

“She isn’t even mine!” Rey insists, the first time that Poe asks her if he can borrow the Falcon. 

But she knows that that isn’t even true. Not as far as Chewie is concerned, or Leia, or any one of the Resistance mechanics that defer to Rey before making any sort of modification to the ship.

Poe knows it just as well as any of them do, which is why he’s risking asking the prickly young Jedi on this particular instance. 

“The General wants us to run a recruitment drive on one of the neighbouring planets,” Poe explains, as Rey chews on her bottom lip thoughtfully. “She thinks Finn and I make more convincing Resistance spokespeople if we arrive in a legend like the Falcon. It makes us more identifiable… which is a problem, but also a bit of positive when it comes to recruitment.”

Claims to ownership aside, Rey still hesitates just for a moment. And Poe gets it — don’t get him wrong, he entirely does! — he doesn’t let anyone touch Black One if he can help it, and BB-8 is almost as protective as he is. 

“How about a trade, then,” he offers, along with what he really hopes is his most winning smile. It’s worked on plenty of beings in the past but, if anything, seems to make Rey even more skeptical. “I take the Falcon, and you keep BB-8 until we get back.”

At the mention of the droid, it’s like Rey’s entire demeanor changes. Like her guard drops, and her eyes are suddenly wide and open. Delighted. “I’m already keeping BB-8,” she snarks, completely deadpan despite the obvious crinkles at the corners of her eyes. 

Summoned by his name, BB-8 pops out of Rey’s quarters with a questioning beep.

“Oh, buddy! That hurts!” Poe groans, and the little droid at least has the good grace to look chagrined. 

But now Rey is smiling for real, with no attempts to hide it. “I guess it’s only fair, though,” she says, as she reaches down to rub the little droid’s dome. “Since I _do_ have your droid, I guess I can let you use the Falcon. Just this once.” 

“Thanks, Rey.” He finds himself smiling back at her, almost without even realizing that he’s doing it. He can see why Finn and even Leia are so drawn to the young woman; her joy and delight is almost infectious. 

The desire to make her smile, himself. To see that joy reflected back at him. 

But then her demeanor shifts suddenly, and Poe can imagine the woman who took down Kylo Ren with a borrowed lightsaber… twice. “But if you damage her, they’ll never find your body,” she adds, and he is pretty sure that she’s about 45% serious.

And he must be fucked up because _damn_ if that side of her doesn’t intrigue him even more.

*

Finn and Rey don’t plan it, but somehow they both gravitate towards each other whenever they’re both on Batuu at the same time.

It’s easy. Sometimes they share meals, or curl up in bed together to watch a holofilm, or just to talk. 

It’s like both of them were starved for touch — affection, _love_ — for so long and now that they have it, they’re both greedy. Can’t get enough of even casual contact like holding hands or leaning up against the other when one of them is exhausted. 

Like right now. 

They’re training together in the little makeshift gymnasium that Leia set up just for that purpose, and Finn has had countless sparring partners over his years in the First Order, but he can honestly say that none of them have ever affected him with their touch like Rey currently is. 

Rey dodges and parries and her foot easily connects lightly with Finn’s chest. She’s a force of nature and it surprises exactly no one that Finn would have been dead in seconds if she had wanted him dead. 

But it isn’t like she’s toying with him or going easy on him. More like trying to draw out the match as long as she possibly can. 

Like she’s enjoying it.

Rey dances just out of reach and her hand against his chest is more of a _caress_ than the blow that could have broken his ribs that he knows that she would have delivered in another scenario. 

He’s good at hand-to-hand combat — better than most, honestly — but Rey is something else entirely. 

Simultaneously gorgeous and deadly.

When she knocks him flat on his back on the ground, she’s gentle enough about it that it would be embarrassing if he hadn’t already seen her fight multiple men twice her size at once. He grunts as his back connects with the mossy ground. 

Immediately, Rey settles down on to his hips, pinning him down playfully. 

“You enjoy that too much,” Finn finally says, once he gets enough oxygen into his lungs to form words. Rey isn’t even breathing hard.

“Only with you,” Rey fires back, still playful.

“You just like the reminder of the day we first met.”

And it is a reminder. Of how far they’ve both come in just a matter of months. To be able to really trust each other, and even enjoy the other’s touch… even when they’re training like this.

There’s a shift in the mood. Rey still has the sparkle in her eyes that she gets when she is doing something that she _really_ enjoys, but her face is open now. Curious. 

And Finn is suddenly reminded of the position that they’re still in, with Rey perched on top of his hips in a way that didn’t seem suggestive at all a minute ago but it’s definitely getting there the longer they stay there. 

“I like this,” Rey says suddenly.

“Kicking my ass?”

Rey’s smile gets even bigger. “Of course.” But then she’s rolling off of him so that she can lay down beside him on the mossy ground, turning on to her side to face him. “But also just… this.” Her hand comes up and lingers on his chest lightly.

Finn gets it. 

_Contact._

He had no idea how much he wanted it for so long. He’d had sex, certainly, with other stormtroopers. But the quick fumbling encounters couldn’t provide the one thing he didn’t even realize that he needed the most. It shouldn’t surprise him that Rey entirely understands. She’d lived her entire life without it, as well, but also the two of them seem to move in synch these days. 

Understanding what the other one needs almost better than they understand their _own_ needs.

Finn rolls on to his side, bringing them face to face, and it shouldn’t surprise him that they’re both in synch in this moment, as well. He uses his hand to cup her cheek, lifting her head up just a bit. And there’s nothing but _invitation_ in Rey’s eyes so he dips his head down so that his lips can meet hers. He has no idea what he’s doing — physically, he’s got it, but emotionally — but Rey is soft and pliable and _wonderful_ underneath his hands and mouth, and she moves eagerly, kissing him back as if this was the only thing that they were ever born or trained to do. 

And it’s pretty much the best thing ever, especially when Rey pulls back just enough that he can feel her panting breath against his lips, just for a long moment, before returning her mouth back to his. And when she opens her lips eagerly when he traces along them with his tongue, as if she’d been waiting — _waiting_ — for him to just ask. Or the way that she threads the fingers of both of her hands through his short hair, nails scraping along his scalp and making him almost dizzy with a want to be closer — _always closer_ — to her. 

He feels something that feels overwhelmingly _Rey_ at the edges of his consciousness, and he tries to pull closer to it, closer to her, as if he could embed himself within the very essence of that which makes her all that she is. Finds himself frustrated by the limitations of their bodies when he has this _feeling_ that he could be closer, still. Could be a part of her…

Finn doesn’t know what that is. Feels like maybe that should scare him just a little, but then Rey lets out a frustrated little whimper as she tries to draw him even closer to herself, and he knows then. _Knows_ , down to the core of his very being.

Finally, Rey is pulling away, and he pushes his forehead against hers, unwilling to be separated from her quite yet. 

“Finn,” she breathes, “you’re…” she trails off, and he can almost feel her reluctance to voice what they both now suspect. “I could feel you,” she finishes, and he can hear the awe in her voice. 

“I could feel you,” he answers, because that’s the important part, right now. There’s a whole lot more to the entire thing, but this feels like the most important part at this moment. The realization that there is more to him and her — them — than their physical bodies.

And the dizzying realization that she felt it as strongly as he did. 

But really, Rey is in his arms right now and Finn has no desire to deal with the larger repercussions of their discovery. He’s going to have to deal with it at some point, but right now he just wants to hold Rey as close as possible for their physical bodies to be and ignore the rest of the world.

*

“I think I’m force sensitive.”

“What?”

“I know. It sounds crazy, but I could _feel_ Rey—”

Poe smirks. “ _Feel_ her. Right…”

“I mean, yeah. Like that. But also more than that. It was like I could feel everything that made her Rey, but separate from her actual body.”

“It sounds like maybe you need to get laid, buddy.”

Finn couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped him. “Yeah, probably. But also, I’m not wrong.”

“Okay, so let’s say that you’re force sensitive. What do you want to do about it?”

“I... don’t even know how to answer that question.”

“It’s okay, buddy. You’ve — _we’ve_ got time to figure this all out.”

*

“What the fuck did you think you were doing out there?”

Rey is as furious as Poe has ever seen her, and that’s saying something. He’s seen her curse in seven different languages while working on the Falcon, and threaten to pull Chewbacca’s arms off during a particularly heated exchange over the state of the compressor. He once saw her throw a glass at nothing, screaming at someone to go fuck themselves as it exploded against the wall. That was concerning. 

He’s even seen her take on Leia. Quiet fury meeting tired but fond exasperation.

(He’s never seen her fight Kylo Ren, but he imagines that she was _magnificent_.)

But this? This is something else. 

“I had no choice! Finn and I were cornered — if I hadn’t made the jump to light speed then, the First Order would have captured us, and the intel along with us!”

“You could have ended up scattered over twenty-six systems! You knew it wasn’t safe to make the jump—”

“And I did it anyway! I’d rather take my chances than be captured again.”

“You made the decision for Finn. And for BB-8.” He can feel the fury coming off of Rey in waves.

“It all worked out fine,” Poe insists, because it _had_.

“You made the decision for me.”

_And — what?_

His confusion must be written all over his face because Rey sighs, now tired and resigned where she was furious just a moment ago.

“Finn and BB-8 are the only family I have. You put them at risk. You put yourself at risk.” Rey suddenly looks so much smaller and something inside of Poe softens. It’s easy to forget how young she really is.

“I had no choice, Rey.” His voice is placating, now. “If we hadn’t made the jump, I wouldn’t be here for you to yell at right now.”

Rey sighs again. “I know. Just… be careful.”

Poe doesn’t know how to be careful. His mother died because she couldn’t do it, either. It’s in his bones.

“I can’t promise that. I can promise that I won’t take unnecessary risks.”

He can tell that it isn’t enough for the Jedi, but it’s all that he can offer. They’re all necessary risks, at this point. They’ve lost so many people already. Rey knows that just as much as he does.

None of them are promised that their family will return from every mission, but he can promise that he will try his damndest to bring Rey’s family home as many times as he can.

*

It should feel _wrong_ — he’s been kissing Rey as often as possible, curling up next to her during rest periods when they both have the opportunity at the same time. They share meals with Poe when they can and Rey seems to be warming to the pilot — despite the bickering which Finn would swear that they almost seem to _enjoy_. 

But also — _also_ — Finn is not blind to the way that Poe looks at him. The lip bites and the appreciate glances, and sometimes the naked longing that he doesn’t even bother to hide. The way the air sometimes catches in Finn’s chest in a way that is both familiar and altogether different from the flutters he gets when he pulls Rey close in to him. If Rey is _home_ then Poe is joy, and Finn is not sure he could live without either of them if they were to make him choose.

But, the thing is, he gets the feeling that they wouldn’t even make him choose. 

And so, the next time the opportunity arises, he _does_ kiss the smirk right off of Poe’s face. 

They’re outside of the base again and maybe it’s being away from all the prying eyes of the other pilots, and the General, and even the kriffing _droids_ are gossiping at this point, that makes it easier to just do it. 

Finn feels the other man go slack under his hands for just a moment, before becoming a flurry of motion all at once. Wandering hands and bruising intensity and _kriffing finally_. Both of Poe’s hands come up to cup Finn’s face and hold him just so, and he knows that he’s smiling against Poe’s mouth, knows that the other man can probably _feel_ it, and it’s with a joyful laugh that Poe finally pulls away so that they can grin at each other.

“We’re drawing some stares,” Poe says, but his eyes don’t wander from Finn’s face at all. A droid seller is watching them with open interest.

“Do we care?”

“I don’t care. But we’re trying to run a rebellion from just outside their town, so Leia probably would.”

Finn links his arm with Poe and, still grinning like an idiot, begins leading them further into the market.

“You never know. This might actually help with recruitment…”

Poe laughs in response and it sounds like _joy_.

*

“I slept with Finn.”

“Me too.”

“And we’re both _okay_ with this arrangement?”

“Seems that way. I’m okay with it. You’re okay with it?”

Rey’s eyes screwed shut tightly for a moment and she scowled. “Why am I okay with this?” 

“Because you know that it doesn’t matter?”

“That’s the point! Shouldn’t it matter?”

“We both want Finn to be happy. And I know that I want you to be happy, despite the fact that you keep threatening to feed me to a space worm. And maybe that’s all that really matters.”

Rey sighed. Her next words were quieter, almost hesitant. “I want you to be happy.”

“Even though you still consider the space slug thing.”

“If you would _krffing stop lightspeed skipping in the Falcon…_ ”

Poe’s laughter echoed through the maintenance bay.

*

Poe has definitely had too much to drink. Like, unquestionably so. Not enough to puke in someone’s helmet (usually his own, but not always…) or really truly make an ass out of himself but… it’s a close thing.

Which is why it surprises absolutely no one when he perches himself on to Finn’s lap, wrapping his arms around Finn’s shoulders and batting his eyelashes at the other man. Finn’s arms come up to steady him in place, more out of instinct than anything else.

“Are you enjoying Life Day?” he asks with another set of exaggerated eyelash flutters. Finn just rolls his eyes affectionately but there is an inelegant snort from approximately four inches to the left of his ear. 

He turns his head towards the source of the snort, feigning innocence. “Oh hey, Rey. I didn’t even see you there,” Poe says with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“You’re really a difficult man,” Rey says, “even when you’ve drank enough to kill a bantha.”

“I think you’re either underestimating my alcohol tolerance or else a full-grown bantha’s alcohol tolerance,” Poe replies, and the smirk hasn’t faded a bit from his face. Arguing with Rey has become something of a pastime in the last few months. One that they both ordinarily enjoy immensely. 

Clearly this fact is not lost at all on Finn. “Couldn’t you two just make out like ordinary people?” 

And at that moment, several drinks in, Poe isn’t entirely sure why they’re not making out like ordinary people. Can’t think of a single reason why they’re not, actually. 

“Would you want to?” he asks Rey, and she clearly isn’t expecting the conversation to swing that way because the question wipes the self-indulgent smirk right off of her face. 

All at once, the atmosphere shifts — feels charged in a way that it didn’t just seconds earlier. And Poe can see the way that Rey is really thinking about it. Would she want to kiss him? It isn’t like he hadn’t thought about it enough times over the last few months — really, since they first met right after the Battle of Crait. She’s kriffing attractive, and he’s always had a thing for powerful women who can hold their own in an argument. 

But Rey just smirks at him, now. “What if I want to make out with Finn, instead?” she asks, coy.

“Don’t bring me into this—”

But Poe grins, delighted, because this is definitely a game that he’s up for playing. “Maybe I want to make out with Finn, too.” 

“Maybe Finn doesn’t want to make out with either of you when you’re both being dicks like this,” Finn protests, but he’s grinning back at Poe, his eyes sparkling with genuine delight. 

This isn’t a game they’ve played before. He knows that Rey and Finn have something going on, and he certainly _knows_ that he is well on his way to falling helmet over ass for Finn. But both of these facts have remained somewhat separated.

Cleaner. Simpler. 

He turns his head minutely to meet Rey’s gaze and he isn’t sure what he’s expecting to see there — hurt? Anger? Jealousy? 

And he’s not sure if it’s the hangar moonshine he’s been drinking but he’d almost swear that Rey looks… _intrigued._. She meets his eyes head on, lifting her chin just a bit in a hint of a challenge. 

Well, okay then.

So he settles himself more firmly against Finn’s hips and uses one hand to guide Finn’s mouth to his. And it starts off gentle but only takes a few seconds to get out of hand. They’ve both been drinking — Finn less than himself, for sure — and Poe can’t even make himself care that he’s straddling the other man’s lap in a very public location, and if Finn continues nipping at his lower lip and pulling at his hair like he currently is, Poe can’t be held responsible for anything that happens.

He can feel Finn’s dick hardening against his thigh, and he can’t help grinding down just a little. Finn rewards him with a strangled groan. But he remembers — fuzzy, but somehow very present within his mind — how this all started, and it’s that realization that makes him pull back reluctantly. 

He begins to grin sheepishly at Rey, but he’s cut off almost immediately by her surge forward to capture Finn’s mouth with her own.

It’s like whiplash. 

All at once, cut off from the intimacy that he and Finn had just been sharing, and suddenly having a front row seat as Rey licks her way into Finn’s mouth. And _gods_ they’re lovely. All contrast and fire and the way that they can somehow anticipate what the other is about to do before they even do it. Shivering in anticipation and pleasure a second before the touch even happens. 

He can barely keep up.

Especially when his position on Finn’s lap is made all too apparent when the other man ruts up against him in response to something that Rey is doing with her tongue. 

And holy shit, if Poe didn’t need to jerk off a few minutes ago, he definitely does _now_.

When Finn and Rey finally separate, she presses her forehead against his for a moment longer, and if anything this is even more intimate than before. 

And the moment is theirs and not his, but it feels like it _could be_.

As if Rey is making an offering.

(Gods, he wants it.)

When she pulls away, Rey’s eyes are dark and intense, and Finn looks just as dazed as Poe is currently feeling.

“Wow,” he breathes and Finn chuckles in agreement. “I guess we’ll just call that one a draw?”

*

She can feel them in the Force and it’s the greatest reassurance that she could ever possibly have. Can feel that they’re alive and well, no matter where they are in the galaxy, like twin stars on the horizon. 

It’s also sometimes incredibly inconvenient.

Like when Rey is trying to pay attention to whatever Leia is telling her, but she can feel how close to orgasm Poe is. Can feel that Finn is right on the edge as well, that he’s trying to hold back, trying to please Poe…

“Rey,” Leia says, her voice tinged with exasperation, and Rey can feel the hot flush in her cheeks.

This only triggers a smirk from Leia.

“I know how distracting it can be to be able to feel your friends through the Force,” she says, and she sounds fond and not just a little sad. “I guess this is as good a time as ever to work on your focus.”

(Rey fails. She knows she fails. But somehow she just can’t make herself care.)

*

“You really are a difficult man,” Rey says, but the familiar refrain is lacking its usual bite when she has her head pillowed on his shoulder. 

“I am, aren’t I?”

“Unquestionably.”

Neither of them sleep much at night, these days, and they’re both creatures of habit. Rey tends to prefer the cockpit of the Falcon for her late night vigils, while Poe can almost always be found perched on one of Black One’s wings. The ship is nestled into a hollow in the stone that their base has been carved out of, close as possible to the walls to provide some measure of protection. They don’t really have a proper hanger — at least not one with room for their fleet that grows nearly every day — but it’s nice to be outside sometimes. At least for clearing their heads on these nights.

“Was it him again?” Rey asks, finally. Not that she really _needs_ to know, but sometimes it helps to talk about it

She doesn’t always like to talk about her nightmares — tries not to, as often as she can, even though Leia keeps telling her that it would probably help to open up to someone. 

There’s some things that she isn’t quite sure that she wants Finn and Poe to know, just yet.

It seems that Poe _is_ in the mood to talk, though. “Yeah,” he offers. “It’s always a variation on a theme, but Ren is usually there.”

Rey knows that Kylo Ren violated Poe in the same way that he violated her. Knows how it felt to have someone push their way into her mind. She pushed back, and so she also knows what it feels like to fight back and win, to feel Kylo’s frustration echoing back at her. 

Poe doesn’t have that knowledge, and her stomach twists at the helplessness she knows that he must have felt. 

She can’t fix it, but she reaches out and finds his hand. Laces her fingers with his in what she hopes is a gesture of support and empathy. 

Kylo is still in her head now, as much as she is in his. That’s another thing that she can’t tell Finn and Poe. Can’t face the horror and revulsion that she knows would be on their faces if they found out. 

“I dream about him, too,” she offers instead, and it’s the truth in more ways than one, even if Poe doesn’t — can’t — know it.

Poe squeezes her hand even tighter and turns his head minutely to lay a kiss against her hairline, just as Finn does to both of them. The gesture is uncommonly intimate for the two of them, but doesn’t feel out of place. 

When Poe finally speaks, he sounds exhausted. “Sick son of a bitch. No offense to the General, of course.”

She isn’t sure what makes her want to open up, now. Maybe the General’s lectures are finally getting through to her. Or maybe it’s that Poe sounds as tired as Rey feels. She’s so tired of thinking about Kylo. So tired of him being in her head, awake or asleep.

“He offered me his hand. Asked me to join him.” She hasn’t talked about it, but this feels like something she can admit to.

Poe blinks in surprise, but his voice is sure when he speaks. “But you didn’t do it.”

“I didn’t. But I considered it, just for a moment.”

Poe’s eyes are clear and resolved, with no judgment or repulsion.

“You’re not him, Rey. You chose to be here with us, and that makes it different. We trust you. We l—,” Poe trails off, as if he’s spoken too much.

She gets it — of course she does — and she squeezes Poe’s hand in acknowledgement. 

“Me too.”

*

Ajan Kloss isn’t really an improvement on Batuu, besides not being currently filled with First Order forces. 

(Which, of course, is a great improvement over Batuu.)

If she thought D’Kar and Batuu were warm and wet, then Ajan Kloss can only be described as a stifling jungle. And though Rey grew up with heat, she can’t quite get used to _humidity_ , and the way that a stream of sweat always seems to be trickling down between her shoulder blades.

Finn’s skin is covered with tiny beads of sweat and it distracts her, even from her position perched atop his hips. His head is thrown back and his eyes are screwed closed, and his skin practically _glistens_ in the dim light from the one solar lantern in her quarters. 

She runs her finger over his chest — over his heart — collecting the tiny beads of moisture under her finger tip. Finn’s eyes flutter open, and she hadn’t even noticed that she’d stopped moving. Is surprised to note that she has, her hips motionless against Finn’s.

“Rey?” Finn asks, but she shakes her head. 

She’s painted one line across Finn’s heart and she adds another for good measure, crossing over the first to make an _X_.

Finn is still watching her curiously, but silently. 

There are no words. None that she’ll let herself speak, anyway.

Rey puts her palm over Finn’s heart and, with that bit of leverage, begins to move once again.

*

“We’ll be back in a few days. No problem,” Poe says, as if they’re just heading over to the market on a supply run, and not rendezvousing with a First Order spy. 

Finn feels Rey tense up on the other side of him, and he knows that she knows exactly how dangerous this mission is. 

There are no unnecessary risks in their lives, anymore.

Finn pulls Rey closer into his side and then also tugs Poe in, just for good measure. As if he can hold them both to him, and protect them both from whatever it is that comes next.

Calm water, even in the middle of an approaching storm.

“You’d better take good care of BB-8.” Poe sounds petulant, but Finn doesn’t miss the hint of real anxiety there.

“Just as good as you’ll take care of the Falcon,” Rey snarks back.

“Do we have to do this now?” Finn asks, because he knows that it’s all a distraction, but if they only have one night left together, he doesn’t really want to spend it listening to Poe and Rey bicker.

Rey sighs and Poe snorts, but they stop talking. Rey is tangling her fingers with Finn’s and Poe is threading his fingers through Finn’s short hair. Both of them are fidgety. On edge. 

“Are you going to spend the night here?” Finn asks. It’s Poe’s bed, but he feels like maybe it’s his place to offer. Poe doesn’t argue, at the very least.

Rey doesn’t even hesitate. “Yeah,” she replies, quiet but firm. 

“Good,” Poe says, before Finn can even respond. Like it was he who had asked.

“We’ll all be fine,” Rey says, barely a murmur. She’s tucked her face into Finn’s neck. 

“Of course we will.”

They’ve almost nearly figured it out. All that’s left is just to _come home_.


End file.
